Better Than The Hype

‘Fable III’ Is A?Wondrous And Silly Thing

November 1, 2010

"Fable III" is a charming and silly epic, set in a mythical British-esque fantasyland named Albion, where wenches are cute and frilly, and men in wigs speak in delightful accents, as if they were Ben Kingsley or John Cleese.

Actually, Kingsley and Cleese fill major roles, as do a variety of respected English actors, from Simon Pegg to Stephen Fry.

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And talk, they do. The script - a bevy of "bloody hells" and reactions to flatulence, of all things - gives hundreds of characters 470,00 words to utter (according to the Guardian newspaper).

The script is stellar. You portray an adult child of the hero from the last "Fable II." You play as either a prince or a princess. It's your choice.

Then you discover your sibling has gone mad, and you must escape the crazy castle to go into the land and become a hero to the people.

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I say you kill "sometimes," because like its predecessors, "Fable III" is more about traveling, making friends, buying stuff, doing odd jobs (making pies, playing lute), and uh contracting STDs.

There's also same-sex marriage in Albion, just as there is real life in Canada, Spain, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Portugal, Belgium and Argentina.

"Fable III" is an addicting feat. To top it off, it invents a pause menu that is not static, but that transports you to a map room with all your costumes on mannequins; plus your guns and achievements hang on walls. That pause place is an evolution that all game makers must learn from.

This is one long puppy, promising lots of replay value, and online modes. You could feasibly play "Fable III" for several hours, every day, for weeks upon months, before you finish all of it, finding all the hidden booty. What a shocker: "Fable III" surpasses the its epic hype.